


Take You to the Dark Side

by Happy_Cow



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alpha Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Alternate Universe - Basketball, Ben Solo is seventeenish, Controlling Ben Solo, Controlling Kylo Ren, Dark Crack, Dirty Talk, F/M, Humiliation, Misogyny, Mommy Issues, Naked Female Clothed Male, Name-Calling, Older Woman/Younger Man, Omega Rey (Star Wars), Omegaverse, Poor Rey (Star Wars), Possessive Behavior, Possessive Sex, Rey is 35, Rey is unimpressed, basketball player Benjamin Solo, basketball puns, established Rey/Finn, instead of The Force its Basketball, its not supposed to be romantic, maybe funny tho, reylo abo
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:40:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29899851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Happy_Cow/pseuds/Happy_Cow
Summary: On what was supposed to be a bucolic walk around the grocery store, Rey’s life is changed forever when she’s bitten by unmedicated high schooler, and aspiring NBA player, Benjamin(Skywalker)Solo. While Rey desperately clings to her last shreds of dignity, he’s going to show her why he’s Alpha, bothonandoffthe court.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 23
Kudos: 84





	1. The Force Awakens

**Author's Note:**

> All of the Space Jam hype on Twitter woke something up inside me,,, my sleeper agent training

This was what she got for asking. Rey could feel the muscles in her face ticking from smiling.

The silence stretched a second too long. “You hate it,” he said, putting those critical thinking skills to good use.

But Rey shook her head and lied to herself, _No, honey, I don’t_. She cradled the pink (she hated pink) box in her hands and pulled out the _clamp_. She knew it _exactly_ what it was because of all the targeted advertising that popped up when she scrolled through ~~hentai~~ Tumblr, but she hadn’t expected its _actual_ dimensions if she ever held the ridiculous thing in her hands. 

In the same vein of ball gags and nipple clamps, this was a Bad Dragon _Neck Clamp_ (tm). It had two metal prongs for pinching-action, and then black rigid jaws to simulate ‘teeth’. Rey had to laugh. Five years of marriage. Just one moment of weakness. The words came out before she could stop them, “You _really_ don’t want to bite me.”

A strained beat passed. Finn ducked his head over his knees and passed a hand over his scalp. 

Rey shut her mouth and screamed at herself for being such a heartless bitch, imposing her degenerate Omega-kinks on poor, innocent Finn. Rey put that smile back on her face. “ _I love it_ ,” she lied, squeezing the torture device in her hand. The ‘ _jaws_ ’ sure put up some resistance, like a binder clip. But with teeth. 

Finn studied her dubiously. _Please don’t make me do this_ , she begged him, but Force powers weren’t real. Rey steeled herself internally, sweeping away any stray hairs and plying the device between her thumb and forefinger. Rey prayed to any listeners that this thing wouldn’t crush anything important, before slipping the jaws of the clamp over the crook of her neck.

* * *

Luckily, the sex shop accepted returns, so Finn received the sum of eighteen dollars plus tax back. Rey wore a turtleneck for the next two weeks until the weird _discoloration_ went away. It started off as an allergic reaction to the material, and then just a regular ol’ bruise. Which was _great_ at work, everybody looking at her funny. 

Rey had _never_ expected to _get married_ ; while slaving away for Plutt and then working for her degree, a _boyfriend_ looked more like a burden than anything else. Alphas have _tried_ to come onto her, but there were prettier and easier Omegas, the ones that went to school to find a white-collar mate. Rey shut herself off to all that and stuck to her guns, so she wouldn’t owe anybody anything. After that, she thought she would be alone. But, Finn came to her late in life (twenty-five, missing dog) as a friend. Five years later, he asked if she’d like to marry him. The rest was history.

So. 

Why did she feel so _gloomy_? 

The only reference point Rey had to a happy marriage was television, like _Roseanne_. The tv-husband was always kind of goofy and funny — _Finn_ was goofy and funny. The tv-wife was acerbic and kind of a bitch sometimes, but for good reason. By Rey’s account, she should be _content,_ if not happy. They weren’t even fat yet.

It wasn’t like she was _trapped_ in her own marriage.

She chose her own mate, a privilege that a _lot_ of less luckier Omegas never had. And she married her _best_ friend, to boot. They shared the same friends, too, for things like Korean barbecue and movie night. Every other week, she and Rose had a girls’ night out. The sex was okay. With _Finn_ , not Rose. Rey had never had sex with Rose, but Rose was an Alpha like Poe. Smelled _really_ nice. 

_And_ just like that, she stopped herself from wondering what sex with Rose or Poe would be like. She shook her head, hissing. She wondered what was wrong with herself. Rey shouldn’t be in heat, but the stress of the clamp added to her biological clock ticking down had placed her on edge. She and Finn agreed: **_No Kids_** , too much combined childhood trauma and related abandonment issues, but her body just didn’t get the message.

Rey pushed the cart through the canned goods aisle, looking for cheap beans. She and Finn took turns cooking, and raw meat kind of _scared_ Rey ever since she ate dubious salami when it was the last thing in Plutt’s fridge. According to _House_ , it was a good thing she didn’t contract worms. 

Footsteps pattered outside of the aisle; when Rey looked again, there was nobody there. She figured that it was somebody else’s kid playing hide and seek with Mommy, and something in her chest ached. She shook the moment of weakness away and resumed scanning the shelves for chickpeas. 

A lot more footsteps and shouts came from the direction of the grocery entrance. The disturbance rippled outward among the shoppers like a wolf among sheep. The sheep named Rey raised her head and wondered what was going on. After surviving Plutt, she didn’t scare too easily, so she shrugged her shoulders and resumed her casual shopping.

A shadow passed outside of the aisle. Then it doubled back, taking a good, long look at Rey.

Rey frowned. A funny smell pricked her nose. Her skin began to tingle. Rey swiped her hand over her collarbone, readjusting her cardigan.

The source of the smell entered the aisle, his face turned away from her. She intended to give him a brief glance, but her eyes just _lingered_. His body hunched forward as if he were sick, his hands tucked into the pockets of his black hoodie. He had long shaggy hair tucked beneath a red baseball cap, and lips that Rey had only ever seen on Greek statues. Shadows ringed his eyes.

As if in slow motion, the pupils of those eyes met hers. 

A jolt ran through her body. She nipped her bottom lip and turned away. There was no doubt now that he was an _Alpha_ and he was shedding hormones. Inwardly, Rey debated reversing the cart, but she was thirty-five and further devaluing. Unless he was a _sicko_ , chances are he would most likely leave her alone. When you lived in a society, you played those odds every day, or else you went into the woods and lived like an anti-social hermit.

Her cart’s wheels squeaked on the floor. Rey was not taking an especially good look at the shelves, but she did see some red clearance tags which gave her pause. Might try to make chickpea burgers again. Rose sent her a recipe. 

Beside her ear, a sharp intake of breath. Her blood froze. A lump formed in her throat, and every thought about vegan burgers dropped from her brain. Her workplace sexual harassment training flashed before her eyes: _Give the Alpha What He Wants, Then Contact HR_. But that’s if he had a gun or you were in a locked room. If there was another Alpha, you screamed for him and then then the two would fight for dominance. Belatedly, Rey wondered if there was anybody around to hear her scream, and her throat seized under pressure.

But she wasn’t at work, and he wasn’t making demands yet. Maybe she should just push the cart away? She tried, but his arm jabbed out in front of her abdomen and she released the cart in shock. His skin burned as hot as a branding iron even through her undershirt. 

Dumb with fear, Rey smacked her side against the shelves. His arms had her boxed in, so there was no escape. He licked his lips and leaned forward. In a second, he had the small of her neck between his teeth, tenderly flicking it with her tongue. In the same instant her hope died, her insides shivered all over. Her toes curled in their keds and her stomach erupted into butterflies. It was like a taste of heaven. Then he broke skin, and he grabbed her shoulders to hold her in place. Her confused excitement plunged back into a mortal terror as the pain set in exponentially.

_Now_ she could scream — she screamed to shred her vocal cords. 


	2. Never Meet Your Heroes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> basketball...
> 
> edit: decided to add a mention abt Rey's phone; I got ahead of myself

Her life was over now, by the way. Thirty-four and a half years of work: escaping Jakku, finding a job to support herself and only herself, falling in love and making friends — all of it, gone up in smoke. Who was she kidding? She could go back farther than that — her life was forfeit the moment she displayed as Omega. Her life was over when her mother dumped her at a mechanics shop. She was doomed from the start. 

Rey wondered if it was the fog of hormones swimming around her brain that made her feel so shitty. Everything between... the bite, to the hospital gurney, was a total and complete void. For all she knew, she could have been raped right _there_ on the floor of the grocery store, and she wouldn’t remember. She didn’t wake up sore in that way, but she had felt remote from her own body. Her skin, gooseprickled. Her senses, muted. 

Rey was sure that she had lost her sense of smell, until a uniformed nurse walked in and noticed that she was awake. The nurse had a friendly face, and dark hair tied in a ponytail, and she introduced herself as _Jessika._ Jessikasmiled and checked the bag of IV fluid hanging off to the side. Jessika smelled faintly of apricots or potpourris: a safe, inoffensive female-Beta smell. But the room and the hospital itself were so sterile that there was no other scent at all. 

This time, Rey took a good look at her surroundings. Peach sunlight streamed from a bay of windows which overlooked a highway. Mounted on the wall in front of her was a flat screen tv; the remote was attached to her gurney by some rubber umbilical cord. A cream-colored sofa took up one side of the wall, and a compliment loveseat was pushed close to her bedside. Rey’s heart sank; she had hoped to see her stuff lying somewhere, but the only personal effect was a black jacket tossed onto the loveseat. But her current digs were... _fancy_. On _Law and Order_ , and reality, the Omega ward in a hospital would be full of screaming pregnant teens. 

“Where am I?” Rey croaked, her throat dry.

“Empiry Medical,” said Nurse Pava. At Rey’s blank look, she said, “ _Me too_. The Board decided to rename it from old _Palpatine_.”

Rey nodded, despite feeling more confused than before. The name _kinda_ rang a bell, like the name of a B-list celebrity. Her gaze drifted to the loveseat again, centering on that dark jacket. She wondered who could have forgotten it there or visited her while she slept; Finn didn’t wear anything like that. 

“Oh! _That_ ,” the nurse gushed. “ _He_ brought it in, you know.” Jessika quickstepped towards the seat and snatched up the jacket, before thrusting it into Rey’s startled hands. Rey recognized now that it was specifically a woolen hoodie. “He thought that it might be chilly in here for you, so he draped it over you while you were asleep. It must have fallen onto the floor, so one of the cleaners put it on the chair.”

A brief gust of air wafted into her face, carrying the warm, heady scent of the hoodie’s owner. Her head buzzed, her breath hitched, and the roof of her mouth tingled, as she recognized instinctively that this was the scent of _her_ owner: the Alpha from the grocery store. Her tongue darted out over her lips, tasting the air; and she would have buried her face in the hoodie, if it weren’t for that nurse. 

The horror set in. Rey croaked a voiceless _thank you_. The nurse seemed to be under the impression that this was all romantic and consensual, and Rey didn’t have the heart or the energy to tell her otherwise. Instead, Rey let the hoodie rest in her lap like her funeral shroud, while the nurse checked her clipboard at the end of the gurney.

“Is everything all right?” Jessika chirped, a tad too high. “Are you hungry? Is your tv ok? I’m no good with those things, but I can bring a technician in case your remote doesn’t work. Your mate wants you to be as comfortable as possible.”

Uncomfortable with this level of attention, Rey muttered one-word answers in the hopes that she would be left alone. To reassure the nurse, she hit a button on the remote, and the tv blinked to life, to a high definition image of a college basketball game. For some reason, Jessika gave a small giggle. “ _Boys_ ,” she sighed, knowingly, as if she and Rey were in on some cosmic joke.

The laugh stung Rey – this was essentially the end of her independent life, and the end of her marriage, and this Beta nurse spent it making in-jokes. Yet her tongue became a thick slab in her mouth at the one question that could alleviate things: _who_. _Who_ bit her? Instead of leaving her to fester in a crowded Omega ward, who was he to bring her to a private suite in a hospital with a chatty nurse, and then leave his hoodie with her in lieu of an actual introduction? It gave her the impression that he _cared_ about her, that it wasn’t a fluke. Which was a dangerous sentiment, because Rey didn’t want to feel safe with this homewrecking, piece-of-shit, sonofabitch Alpha. 

But wasn’t it inevitable that they would have to meet at some point? Or would he try to dissolve the bond as soon as possible? Rey bit her bottom lip, her fingers curling around the thick fabric of the hoodie. “When can I see him?” she asked.

The nurse frowned and checked the clock on the wall, which read 3:30. “In about two hours, give or take,” she guessed. “We _tried_ to hold him, but Mr. Solo insisted he couldn’t miss his afterschool practice. He _does_ have a game tomorrow.” At Rey’s dumb look, the nurse shrugged, as if to say _What can you do_. “His family is _close_ to this hospital, ma’am. For all his shortcomings, Palpatine was the one who rebuilt Anakin Skywalker from the feet up.”

Rey stopped short of demanding whether her mystery-man was related to Palpatine or a fucking Skywalker. Her heart couldn’t take any more surprises; she wouldn’t mind being disappointed. Even a nobody like her understood the name _Skywalker_. Rey figured that if it was them, then she was probably bitten by a distant relation, like Luke’s weird estranged cousin or something. Yeah. The dark-haired man that she recalled to her mind looked nothing like young Luke; _maybe_ Anakin, in the nose and in the volume of his hair, but even that was a stretch. Rey flopped back into bed, a ball of dread reforming in her stomach. 

She looked around the room again, and asked for her phone. Her purse and wallet and things, everything that would identify her. Most of all, she wanted to call her husband, Finn, but she didn't want the nurse to know _that_ specifically. Jessika helpfully reassured her that her mate carried all of those things, but she could change back into her regular clothes when he picked her up later. Rey swallowed and slumped back into her gurney. _Fine._ Wherever he was, poor Finn would have to wait a little longer. 

Two hours passed in a heartbeat. Jessika helpfully drew the curtains down in front of the windows, so she wouldn’t have to stare out at the mind-tingling darkness outside, in all directions, save for the thin line of the highway. Rey’s stomach churned with anxiety. 

A little voice inside her head had been screaming at her to call Finn, but she couldn’t muster the courage to do it. Rey had never actually gotten cable tv before except in hotels, and she was fascinated by all the talking little multi-colored animals on Cartoon Network. It was too _fucking late_ now; from the sound of their footsteps, Rey tracked them coming from the elevator down the hall. 

Jessika poked her head into the open room. She was still smiling, but Rey could smell anxiety in the Beta. Before she could interpret the worry in Jessika’s eyes, the cause of that worry barged its way inside.

She looked about five ft nothing tall. She wore a trim women’s jacket and heels that clicked on the tiled floor as she made her approach. Rey would have known that face from a Wikipedia article or from the television news, but to see it looming over her, like a predatory bird, plunged her into confusion and distress. Meanwhile, the older woman studied Rey like a picture; as a result, a frown line at the corner of the woman’s impeccably rouged mouth deepened. 

In their peripheral, another body slipped inside the room. Rey’s eyes flickered towards it, and her heart stuttered. _He_ stood at the foot of the gurney, with his head bowed; he wore a black sweatshirt this time, but with the capital letters FOHS in red stitched across the front. 

A manicured hand snapped in front of Rey’s face, forcing her to look up. “I want you to know that I see _right_ _through you_ ,” the woman snarled, in a voice barely above a whisper. “That _look_ on your face right now? That doesn’t work on _me_ , _honey_.”

Rey blinked really fast, afraid the woman would claw out her eyes.

“This is not going to end the way you think,” the woman promised. 

“ _Mom_ ,” he muttered. “Mom, she didn’t want this. I don’t think she knows who I am.”

“ _Everybody_ knows who we are,” the woman replied shrewdly. “Ben, let _me_ do the talking. We‘re gonna get this thing _dissolved_.”

At that proposal, Rey nearly bleated with joy — she was pretty sure now that this woman could be Senator Leia Organa: Princess of Alderaan, The General, and Poe Dameron’s Queen. This was all a big accident, and once this was over, she could try to get an autographed napkin for Poe.

But her hopes plummeted when her other half snarled, “ _You can’t dissolve it!”_ Rey jumped, and the General straightened immediately; all eyes centered on him. His fists closed around the sides of the gurney, skin paper white. “Mom, do you know how _long_ it takes to break a bond?” Now his tone bordered on simpering, or actually it _was_ simpering. “The drugs alone will _kill_ my _game_ ,” he bemoaned.

Leia started, then stopped. She threw her hands in the hair. “How is that possible?” she demanded flatly. “ _Luke_ never had this problem, Ben.”

“I think Luke is asexual,” Ben replied smartly. “Those drugs do _nothing_ to him, because there’s nothing for them to _do_ in the first place.”

Leia harrumphed, placed a hand on her waist, and muttered something borderline incestuous underneath her breath. Ben’s eye twitched. Rey had the feeling that she wasn’t supposed to be witnessing this private family moment, but she couldn’t stop watching or hearing it. She also had the sneaking suspicion that ‘Ben’ wasn’t a legal adult. Like, he might be below drinking age. 

“Oh _alright_ ,” huffed Leia Organa. Ben’s face lit up adorably in a smile. “But this gets _dissolved_ before you go to college,” she warned him. 

“No sweat,” Ben drawled. He pumped his fists. 

“She can stay in the house, but _don’t_ let her put roots down,” said Leia. “This is a _temporary_ thing.”

“What do I do about her job?” said Ben, and he stopped bouncing in place. 

“You mean what do _I_ do,” Leia sighed. “You’re a _minor_ , so her baggage slides to _me_.”

“Oh,” said Ben, his mouth twisting to the side.

“Excuse me?” Rey croaked. Mother and son turned to her, as if remembering she were still there. Still party to this — two Alphas deciding what to do with her. Rey’s heart quailed, but she forced herself to speak, to protect everything she had. “I _want_ to dissolve the bond.”

Her heart fluttered in her chest. “I know - I know you think that I’m a _gold digger_ ,” she said, addressing the mother directly. Appealing to their shared ‘sisterhood’, for what it was worth; Leia was an avowed feminist icon. “But I. I have my own job, and I’m _married—._ ”

“ _Ben_!” cried Leia, scandalized.

Ben shrugged, and averted his eyes. “She wasn’t wearing a ring,” he muttered. 

“I don’t,” said Rey, “I don’t want to _wait_ for him to graduate high school.”

“It’s not til the end of _high school_ ,” Leia corrected her. “It’s until the end of their basketball season. That’s like, what, Ben?” She turned to her son. “Mid-March?”

Ben shrugged, and muttered _prom_ under his breath. Leia smacked him on the shoulder, and snorted, bemused. 

Rey retreated into herself. Never did the phrase apply more succinctly than it did now: _Never meet your heroes_. But then a hand rubbed her shoulder reassuringly; Rey glanced up at the smiling faces of Leia, Ben, and even Jessika peering into the room. Instead of that dangerous animal that bit her in the grocery store, he actually looked… _boyish_ now _._ The tips of his ears sort of peeled out from his hair. Cute, if you could call a six foot two boy _cute_. “You’ll be free in no time,” Leia promised. 

Well. If Leia Organa said it, then it must be true. Until basketball season ended.


	3. The B-Word

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I m also disturbed by the lack of basketball puns;;
> 
> TW: nonconsensual snuggling; name-calling I guess

“Oh wow,” said Rey.

If you took Finn and Rey’s apartment, cloned it three times, and stacked them on top of each other, Benjamin Solo’s house would still be bigger. Rey had never thought she would ever step foot inside a house with more than four bedrooms before. “The Whirlpool is a little tricky to use if you’ve never used one before,” he said, casting a dubious glance into the tub. He straightened and rubbed his back. Glass jars of bath salts lined the rim; to Rey, the whole scene was just a few candles short of a romantic evening. He shrugged and walked out of the en suite bathroom, and Rey trailed after him. 

The law required that the Alpha _stay_ with their just-bonded Omega and get registered, so that there was a _legal_ claim to go with the _biological_ claim. In _theory_ , this law was supposed to protect vulnerable, impressionable young Omega girls from being swooped up into a harem. Then the girl could file to dissolve the bond, or request child support if it came down to that. In practice, it meant that Rey couldn’t go home just yet to her legal spouse, because she got bit by an unmedicated high schooler. He took her wallet and phone, called his mother for instructions, and got them registered that Sunday. 

They arrived at the house at eight o’clock pm. Rey had _really_ wanted to eat a snack, and then lie down somewhere and go to sleep, but then Leia drove away and Rey got scared. At that point, Ben decided what a _great_ idea it would be to amble around and give a tour of his grand estate. 

They walked into what would be Leia Organa and Han Solo’s bedroom, which was laid out as perfectly as a magazine spread. Ben slid his hands into the front pocket of his sweatshirt. “So?” he said.

Rey had gotten her old clothes back when she left the hospital: her cardigan, her jeans. She slipped her hands into her own pockets. Her skin tingled just from being in proximity to him, but she didn’t feel the _overwhelming_ need to jump his bones and ride him on the conveniently placed bed. Thoughts like that would be pretty gross; he was seventeen, so she was practically twice his age. 

“Do you want to _see_ anything?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts. Rey looked at him like a deer in headlights. She felt she had seen everything there was to see tonight. “Anakin’s jersey?” he suggested. “Luke’s dirtyass shoes?”

Rey wavered. “Oh.” Well. She didn’t want to be rude, but it was getting late. “Tomorrow is fine,” she said. “Don’t you have to go to school tomorrow?” _Shouldn’t you go to sleep?_ she meant, but she didn’t want to sound like she was nagging him. She wasn’t his mother, after all; that was Leia’s job. Whenever Leia came back. 

“I have a game tomorrow, yeah,” he muttered evasively.

“You can show me all that after your game.” Rey just couldn’t read what this guy wanted from her. TV taught her that communication was vital to a healthy working relationship, so. “I want to call Finn first, and then I think I’ll go to bed.”

Ben tilted his head. “What about a bath?” he asked. “You didn’t get one since yesterday, and the grocery and the hospital are full of... _germs_.”

“I didn’t take you to be a _germaphobe_ ,” she laughed. Ben didn’t share her amusement. In fact, it looked like his eye twitched again. She read that some Alphas could be... _persnickety_ about cleanliness. Wolves and their territory, that kind of stuff. Rey swallowed her pride and said _okay_. If she played along, he could give her her phone.

“Thank you,” Ben said, solidifying her opinion about him: _total germaphobe_. She thought he would leave her with the master spa-bathroom, but he started walking towards what would probably be yet _another_ bathroom. Great. “How do you like the house?” he asked, and he slowed his pace to look at her. For a panicked moment, she wondered if bonding let him read her mind. 

She put a smile on her face, telling herself that that was _stupid_. “It’s great. But it feels more like a _hotel_ than a home, to me,” she answered honestly. “Even if it were me and Finn living here, we would get pretty creeped out.” From the silence after, Rey discovered that she had said the wrong thing. “It’s a _great_ house,” she emphasized. “I’m just homesick for my own.”

Ben made a bear-noise in his throat that sounded like agreement. “Yeah, it can get pretty _quiet_ here,” he confessed drily. “Mom saw it and wanted it, and Uncle Luke pitched in some NBA money to help. They thought they would all live in the house like _one big family._ ”

His voice drifted far away as he slipped inside a new bedroom. “Oh... So now it’s just you and your Mom?” Rey trailed inside and realized from the smell alone that it was _his_ room. It felt a lot more lived-in than the previous master bedroom, but it was still twice the size of whatever Rey used to sleep in. Dark-colored walls, hardwood drawers, and two separate doorways that lead to another en-suite bathroom and a walk-in closet. 

Without preamble, Ben put both hands on the neck of his sweatshirt and pulled it over his head. A thin pale band of waistline stretched vertically before Rey’s eyes, before she spun around to face the wall. “ _Whoa_ ,” she bleated. She realized that she had been saying that a lot in the last few hours: _whoa_ , _oh wow_ , and _that’s cool_ , but the wonders never ceased. 

Rey heard a door click closed. The temperature must have jumped ten or thirty degrees, because her thighs and her armpits broke out into a cold sweat. “What’s wrong?” he asked behind her. “Don’t you _want_ a shower?” Was it just her, or did his voice sound a little _husky_? A little _flirtatious_?

Rey heard the rustle of more clothes dropping to the floor and her mouth went dry. She wasn’t sure what was happening, but it felt _illegal_. She just wasn’t sure who would land in a cell.

He sighed through his nose, and his footsteps padded on the carpet behind her. “Here. My shower isn’t _too_ hard to use,” he deadpanned. “I took one in the locker room before I met you, so I wouldn’t freak you out.”

Those words sent a spike of indignation through Rey’s fear, and she turned around to give him a piece of her mind. She wasn’t a _dog_ ; she wouldn’t care if he had smelled like a basketball game. But, following the pull of gravity, her eyes slid downwards — down his shoulders, his barrel-chest, and the ridged plane of his abdominal muscles. Her sightseeing ended on his bright red boxers. Inwardly, she knew she should be feeling relief, but instead her eyes began tracing the long, curved shadow slung against the fabric of his boxers. 

He flicked on the light and walked into the bathroom, this one smaller and more spartan than the previous one. No spa, no bath-salts, no hot tub. Just a very handsome shower with black marble tiling, and of course the basics: a sink, a mirror, and a toilet. It took a conscious effort for Rey to keep her eyes above his waist-level.

“Just um... I’ll find you something to wear when you get out,” he said, scratching the back of his head. He found something interesting on the bathroom rug to stare at.

Rey felt mildly sorry for him, but this was what he got for putting highschool basketball over of the lives of innocent people. “I’ll ask Finn to bring extra clothes tomorrow,” she sighed. “Hell. Maybe I can uh, sort things out with the Registration Office and try to go back home?” 

Yeah. _Yeah_ ; she wasn’t dripping slick for him, or begging for his knot. Sure, sometimes an intense _curiousity_ for his body or his dick intruded into her brain, but that wasn’t so bad. Rey had been taking suppressants as soon as she could get her hands on them; that inner-Omega that _screamed_ at her to make nests when she was sixteen had slowly, steadily gone quiet. Asides from wanting to get bit sometimes, she was essentially a regular Beta.

He made a low sound in his throat. “There’s a _lot_ for you to wear here,” he answered mildly. “Like the stuff that Mom leaves around.”

Rey snorted. She had taken a good look at Leia’s closet; she was pretty sure she would get sued if she stretched out any of those outfits. She waited for any further comment about her going home, but he seemed distracted. 

It would have been better if she just chased out the stupid boy and took her damn shower, but he had that _guilty puppy_ look to him, and that concealed weapon in his boxers. So she was wholly unprepared when he blurted out, “In Health 101 in middle school, one of the topics was Omega Care.”

Rey’s smile faded.

“So you can wear all of my things,” he said, raising his head. His eyes met hers, pinning her to the spot. “When you’re feeling scared or lonely or when I’m at school, you can go inside the closet. Maybe make a _nest_ , if you feel like it.”

At work, that would count as a micro-aggression. It was actionable in court, and she could report it to HR. Rey tried to speak, and found her throat parched. She swallowed, heat rushing to her face. “ _Whoa_ ,” she wheezed, “ _Ben_. _Let’s not get ahead of ourselves_...”

She would remind him that she was married and twice his age, but then he turned and exited through the bathroom doors. Rey stared after him, compelled by some prickly instinct to wait for him to return. After some time passed, the instinct sagged, and she could force herself to start undressing. All her clothes formed a bundle on the floor. 

Rey didn’t need to struggle with the shower knobs to get a steaming _hot_ shower going — unlike the shower at home, _hot_ actually meant _boiling_ hot, and she needed to turn the knob down or risk being boiled alive. _Fire cannot kill a dragon_ , normally, but right now Rey was the _farthest_ thing from a mighty dragon. The glass walls of the shower offered no protection from any peeking Tom’s, or peeking _Ben’s_.

Rey could have laughed at herself. The water felt like health itself crashing down on her, but she couldn’t enjoy it. She kept watching and waiting for the Alpha to peep in on her.

At the end, she dried and then wrapped herself around in a fluffy white towel. “Ben? I’m done,” she called out. No voice replied to her; a gulf yawned in her chest. Did something happen to him? Did he leave her? “Ben?” She pushed through the double doors.

Ben was there after all! He lay in his bed, with his back resting against the headboard. The sheets and a couple pillows were pulled up over his lap; he looked all tucked in and ready for bed. “‘Sup,” he said, jutting his chin out at her. 

_Stupid_! Here she was worrying about him for the entire shower, nearly chirping for him, while he was... Rey wondered what he was doing. She traced his stony face towards the wall across the bed, and noticed a flatscreen television on. _Family Guy_ played on mute.

“ _Oh god_ ,” she spat, disgusted with herself. 

“What?” Ben demanded, his eyes wide, face flushed. “What is it?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing you did,” Rey said, abashed. She had been worried over this stupid kid for nothing. Here he was, innocently watching his stupid cartoons, while she worried over being debauched by him. 

_Oh_ , Ben croaked. Rey looked at the foot of the bed and found his clothes laid out on the covers. A pair of basketball shorts, specifically, and a long black jersey that read,

**KNIGHTS**

**54**

when unrolled. Seeing his clothes confused Rey; why did he lay those out? Were those for tomorrow? Wouldn’t he just kick them to the floor in his sleep?

Then she noticed a black square sitting next to the folded clothes: her phone. Rey gasped in delight and dropped the jersey.

In a flash, she was out the door, breathing fast. The hallway stretched to darkness on either side; a breeze flowed past her thighs. Her nipples hardened beneath the towel.

Rey crouched down with her back against the wall, heart hammering in her chest. She unlocked her phone and a Low Battery warning popped up. Problem for another time — she opened her Contacts next. Rey hit Finn’s cell number, heard the dial tone, and then the generic answering message. Rey cursed herself for not paying for the landline — but the only calls they normally got through there were robocalls.

“Finn! It’s _me_ ,” she hissed desperately into the phone. Tears welled up in her eyes. Her head swam. She had so much that she wanted to say to Finn, but not the words to express them. She shivered again and clutched her shoulders. 

“I miss you,” she said at last. Her voice echoed weakly in the empty halls. Rey wet her lips. “I um,” she swallowed. “Tell Poe, that I’m at _Leia Organa’s_ house. She personally promised me that this situation is only going to last a month just about. Until um, mid-March, when basketball season is over...” 

_How much does he know?_ Rey wondered, and the question slid a new shard of agony between her ribs. The Low Battery warning flashed on her screen again, like a threat. “Well I love you,” she choked, blinking fast. “Um. I’m going to try to call _tomorrow_. I think I should pack some clothes. I love you; my phone is dying, _I love you!_ ” Rey wasn’t sure if the message hung up or she may have hit the End Call button too soon. Her phone blinked off by itself out of self-preservation. 

Rey might have stayed out there for another hour, but the door opened, and a dark eye peered out at her. “Rey?” His voice was muffled by the door. “You should come inside; you’ll catch a cold if you stay out there.” She took a deep breath and pushed herself from the wall. The towel slipped down, only barely held in place by her armpits. Ben opened the door for her – he still only wore the boxers. As Rey brushed past him, she could feel his body heat radiating off of him. He coughed a little bit to clear his throat, before pushing the door close. 

The words _Thank-you_ fell woodenly out of her lips before she could stop them. Why did she need to thank him? This was _her_ phone, and this situation was _his_ fault. If anything, she was entitled to live like a queen off some Skywalker goodwill. Next she asked, “Do you have a charger for my phone?” Ben didn’t reply, so she heaved a sigh. Just one more thing to get from Finn tomorrow. If the Registration Department didn’t grant her leave, then she should probably make a list of what she needed for her extended forced vacation.

“ _I don’t think you should leave tomorrow_ ,” he blurted out.

Goosebumps prickled along her back. Rey pulled the towel around her tighter, her ears pricked. 

“You _shouldn’t_ leave tomorrow,” he said in a lower voice, as if his tone could soften his demand. His arms raised, before wrapping around his chest. “I can get somebody to buy all your clothes and shit tomorrow. It’s not important.”

She tried to smile, tried to laugh it off. “Ben, this isn’t a _permanent_ thing,” she chided him, recalling Leia’s words. Her earlier fantasy about living off of Skywalker money was just that: pure _fantasy_. If he spent even a _dime_ on her, it would feel like she owed him something later. “Besides, I need to see my husband. _That’s_ important to _me_.”

“No. _No no_ …” He shook his head rapidly, his wavy hair curling around his face. “You don’t know what this _feels_ like,” he choked. “I was so _fucked up_ last night, and during practice today, I... I need you to – I _need_ you –.” Abruptly he cut himself off, raising both his hands to rake across his scalp. 

Pulling the towel tighter around her body, she stepped closer to him. She laid a hand over his bicep to try to comfort him, but something _electric_ passed through her skin and she snatched her hand away. “Ben,” she said, “if _you_ can go to school and play basketball, then _I_ can go and see my husband. It’s _that_ simple.”

The corner of his mouth peeled up in a pained snarl. He exhaled sharply.

But if he were angry about it, then that was his problem and not hers. Hell, Rey couldn’t see why she shouldn’t be able to resume working until the bond was dissolved in mid-March. This wasn’t the year 500 B.C; Rey didn’t need to stay home and build a nest while he killed mammoths or whatever. Once she set her phone down, Rey looked around his bedroom, for the moment stumped at what she was supposed to do next. She couldn’t wear the towel to sleep…

Ben noticed her confusion, and the frustration drained from his face. He pat the jersey on the bed with his big hand. _Oh_ , she realized. “ _Ben_ ,” she choked, going red in the face.

He sat down heavily on the side of the bed, his brow creased. “You said you didn’t want to wear my Mom’s stuff,” was his only explanation. 

Rey looked to him, and then the clothes laid out on the bed. More and more, she wondered if he didn’t do this on _purpose_. Rey picked up the jersey and the basketball shorts, knowing she would feel the lack of panties in the morning. Rey walked into the bathroom and changed out of the towel rapidly. The jersey clung off her shoulders like a smock, and the basketball shorts ballooned off her waist. Rey rinsed out her mouth with Listerine and blow-dried her hair to save some time, and in the mirror, she accidentally caught a long glimpse of herself. It looked like an episode titled _Rey Goes to Clown School_. 

Ben laid himself out on the bed again when she left the bathroom. The lights were dim, and he had his arms stretched out on either side of him. Rey had never seen a chest like that except in comic books. His eyes half-opened when Rey came in, and he seemed to study her with what Rey felt was disinterest. So she was surprised to hear a murmured “ _Wow_.” 

Rey gave him her back when she closed the bathroom door, so he wouldn’t see her blush. She heard a _wow_ again, so she deftly yanked the back of the jersey down over her balloon-butt. It probably rode up when she went to the bathroom. “Ben, are you going to show me to my bedroom, or should I just wander around and _pick_ out my room?” she demanded. At this point, she would choose the master-bedroom with the attached spa, just to spite Leia for abandoning her.

“Girl, you _can’t_ be serious,” he said, frowning. “I have a game tomorrow.” But Rey was completely serious. His eyes narrowed at her, and the corner of his mouth dipped into a frown. He propped himself on his hands and sat up in bed, all those muscles shifting in the dim light. “You know what. You do whatever you fucking want to do tomorrow, but I need you to come to bed. Come _here_ already,” he whined.

A muscle in her jaw worked. _Fine_ , _so his mask slipped off_ , she thought bitterly. So would hers. “Don’t call me _girl_ ,” Rey spat. She folded her arms. She would be anything but easy. “Ben. I’m _not_ sleeping with you—.”

“ _Omega_.”

“ _Try again_ ,” she snarled, hackles raised. Stupid _pup_.

His brow raised, and his lips curled upwards in a brief grin. The air grew thin and it became hard for Rey to breathe. “You asked for it,” he muttered, swiping a hand beneath his nose. “Fucking _come here already, bitch_.”

The instant Rey heard it, the nerves in her body lit up. Until now, she didn’t know that he could actually _do it_ since he was so young: the Alpha voice. She thought she was immune to it after withstanding Plutt’s endless barking and snapping. 

Ben chuckled under his breath. Rey got as far as the side of the bed, before she managed to bring her feet to a halt. Her teeth clacked together; already she stonily resolved that if he tried to rape her, she would tear him to pieces, Skywalker or no. Tears of indignation welled in her eyes. Ben sidled towards her and sort of pulled her into the bed, like an awkward wrestling throw. Or like a wolf dragging its carcass someplace to eat.

The lights switched off completely, plunging Rey into the dark. The world she was in now was hot and heavy, and it had her grasped in its two hands. This was it. This was how it was going to end.

Instead he flipped her around and wrapped his arms savagely around her waist. His body pressed flush to her back.

His breathing softened against her ear.

But Rey didn’t want to go to sleep. She was tired, yes, but she really believed that she deserved her own bed, and that Ben didn’t deserve to go to sleep. Her lip curled over her teeth; she was so angry that a low growling stuttered from her throat. In response, a low rumbling responded to her; Ben was purring in his chest. Rey wiggled animatedly, trying to escape his grasp; his purring transmuted into groaning.   
  


He snuffled against her shoulderblade. “ _Give it up_ ,” he pleaded. His palm pressed against her stomach, making her body clench. When she tried to elbow him away, he said it again, “ _Give it up_ ,” only this time he wasn’t asking. To emphasize his point, he raised his head and pressed his mouth against the crook of her neck. Lights lit up behind her eyes.

In that moment, Rey would give anything to get back to the simple Neck Clamp again. 

“... _I hope you lose your basketball game tomorrow_ ,” Rey grumbled. 


End file.
